Opera Preview: The Big 30: Scott Schoover on Union Avenue Opera's 30th

I caught up with Scott Schoonover, the Artistic Director and Conductor of Union Avenue Opera, for a chat about the company’s 20204 season. This interview is based on our Zoom call, with the usual edits for clarity and brevity (“the soul of wit,” as Shakespeare wrote).

Chuck Lavazzi
So you're opening with Bizet’s “Carmen” and then a concert staging of Verdi’s “Aida” and finally Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”

Scott Schoonover
Right.

Chuck Lavazzi
Often the third show at UAO is a Broadway musical. I see others doing this. Is this going to be something you're going to be doing more of in the future?

Scott Schoonover
I think we'll continue to do it. It's not that we plan necessarily to do it every single year for the rest of our lives, but for the moment, it's working for us. And it's been a real boon to ticket sales, especially post pandemic, trying to get things back up on their feet.

And also, we ended up having a lot of fun with it. It’s sort of a different medium of storytelling and for us the fun of opera is the storytelling. And from what we hear from our audiences, they really enjoy seeing those musicals and hearing them sung without mics, which is really an interesting change from what they get to hear other places.

Chuck Lavazzi
Yes, that is a rare experience. As an audience member and as a critic, I've kind of gotten tired of going to see musicals that are always amplified. Half the time I find that the amplification makes a lot of the lyrics incomprehensible.

Scott Schoonover
I know. Me too. Yeah

Chuck Lavazzi  
This raises another question. Is it sometimes difficult to find shows, non-operas, that will work in an operatic setting? I mean, obviously, “Ragtime” works because it's almost an opera, and Sondheim shows have a lot of musical depth to them.

Scott Schoonover  
Yeah, and sort of Golden Age shows, Rodgers and Hammerstein, those sorts of things. I mean, they were written to be unamplified in the beginning.

Sondheim is an interesting guy because in my brain, he has a classical sense about him. “A Little Night Music” was my first choice in that sense because I felt like it really was operatic in so many ways.

Chuck Lavazzi  
Well, “Sweeney Todd” also.

Scott Schoonover
Yeah. And I intend to do “Sweeney Todd” at some point, for sure. And I’m also a big fan of Kurt Weil, which I want to do in the future too. We aren't going to announce our 2025 season until our big gala this fall. But we're working on some options for that. And also, of course, the first two shows this season.

Chuck Lavazzi  
Well, let's start with “Carmen.” I mean, this is one that's very popula.r

Scott Schoonover  
For the 30th season, I wanted to do three kind of big ensemble shows that had a lot of popular appeal to kind of make a big statement. And “Carmen” certainly is always the most popular piece when we put out an audience survey.  

I think it's just one of those operas that people know. They enjoy hearing the music and it's got all the elements of a popular show. It's got this rebellious, sexy character who is at the center of it. And it's a dramatic story. There are things that tug at your heartstrings. There's a kid's chorus. There are all sorts of great things about it that people seem to like.

Elise Quagliata

And our Carmen, Elise Quagliata, has been at Union Avenue many, many times over the past several years and has gone on to have a pretty sizable career. Among a couple of roles that she does a lot is Carmen. I've gotten to see major clips of her doing the show and I keep wanting to engage her in this conversation. It happened that she had free time during the summer, so she's going to be our Carmen.

I can tell you already in rehearsals, it's so fun to watch her work and see. Just all the different things that she brings to it and all the different productions that she has been through in her life, all the different ideas that are there

Chuck Lavazzi
Well, and there are so few really meaty leading roles for women with lower voices.

Joel Balzun

Scott Schoonover
That's true. That's a good point.

Chuck Lavazzi  
So it's always good to see them on stage.

Scott Schoonover
Our Don Jose and Escamillo (Brendan Tuohy and Joel Balzun) are both making their debuts with us and they're wonderful. And then Meroë Khalia, who played the governess last year in “The Turn of the Screw,” is playing Michaela, which is the really touching sweet role of the home girlfriend of Jose, who comes twice to try to find him and give him messages from his mother. And she has a beautiful aria in the show.

Chuck Lavazzi  
I think this is a very hard part to do credibly because she's written as such a cliche victim.

Scott Schoonover  
She is. I agree with that in terms of the character. But the other thing about it is the Bizet gives her the only really beautiful music in the whole piece. It was so touching to hear her sing that aria. I think people are going to really love her.

Chuck Lavazzi  
What kind of a production concept are you doing? Is it more or less traditional?

Meroë Khalia

Scott Schoonover  
Yeah, it's pretty traditional. We have a unit set that is used in different ways. It's a beautiful set and it's got a backdrop. It's very traditional Seville, the time period they're used to. The soldiers are in the yellow uniforms that they're supposed to be in and all that kind of stuff.

Mark Freiman is directing this one. I think he has a nice eye for the pictures of the stage. A lot of little nice details go into what he's doing. The concept I would say is “just tell them the story.”

Chuck Lavazzi  
So let's go on to what I think is the really unusual one here: The concert version of “Aida.” I don't know if there are any companies in St. Louis that could actually do it as written because of its size. So how are you approaching this? Is it going to be just a concert setting, semi-staged, or what?

Scott Schoonover  
We're going to have a basically blank stage with the blacks [black curtains] around the back and then the chorus will be seated. There's a chorus of 30, which is a pretty big group. There are 16 men and 14 women. And it's a really big sound.

They'll be seated on stage and then in front of them will be the principals. And they're going to stand and come to the front of the stage when they would be on stage. There won't be any projections or anything like that. The only thing that will sort of change is that when the chorus is singing, they'll be lit and when they're not singing, they won't be lit.

Marsha Thompson

So it focuses the energy on the front of the stage when it's just the principals. The principals are singing from memory, and they'll be in concert attire, but they're going to be acting. They're going to be relating to one another as they would in the opera.

Our Aida, Marsha Thompson, is a bit of a known quantity. She was our Abigaille in “Nabucco” a few years ago and she's sung Aida several times already in her career. Our Radames, Limmie Pullia, just covered [understudied] the role at the Metropolitan Opera and he got to go on stage in the part, to great success. He’s from Southern Missouri and so he was like, “yeah, I really would love to be able to do this in my home state.”

Limmie Pullia

Melodie Wilson, who is a favorite here, is our Amneris. There are lots of roles in the show, but those are the three that have the bulk of the arias.

It's going to be really full in there, similar to [our production of] “Ragtime” in a way, but even bigger. Interestingly, we got a lot of the ragtime folks back in to do “Aida,” which is kind of cool.

Chuck Lavazzi  
Regarding the size of the chorus and cast, what kind of challenges does that present to you as a music director in terms of making sure everything is sonically clear?

Melodie Wilson

Scott Schoonover 
I talk to them about that a lot in rehearsals. I often make the endings of phrases a little shorter, so that  there's a space in between. So, for example, if there's a quarter note at the end of a phrase, I'll usually make that into a short eighth note, so that we actually get in that space. It sounds a little truncated in the rehearsal room, but when you go in the auditorium, it sounds exactly right. We have to overstep everything up a little bit in terms of articulation to make it work.

Chuck Lavazzi  
More pointed and precise.

Scott Schoonover  
Yeah, exactly. But it doesn't sound like that out front. It just sounds clear, but that's what you have to do in order to make it work.

We love the acoustic of the auditorium. One of the things that I can't imagine is before the 1950s renovation of the building they used to have wooden round pews, like they have up in the balcony, and a wooden floor. I can't imagine what it sounded like in there back then before carpeting and before those padded seats. It would have been just insanely live. Now it just gives a nice balance with the orchestra being in the pit. I love our space. I wouldn't trade it

Chuck Lavazzi  
Any other special events coming up that we need to talk about?

Scott Schoonover  
Oh, I just want to say about “Into the Woods” that Jenny Wintzer is directing. She has done a lot theater producing in the St. Louis area. She used to be at COCA and has been involved Shakespeare in the Park [St. Louis Shakespeare Festival]. She's a wonderful director, and we're having a lot of fun pulling all that together.

Laura Skroska is designing the set for this. We're using the whole auditorium as the set. So it's not just the stage that's going to be decorated. I think people will enjoy that a lot.

In terms of special events, we have the Backstage Pass luncheon concerts [June 25, July 23, and August 6]. There's one for each of the shows, and it's a chance to meet the singers and to hear what the directors have in mind. You get a lunch, and you get to hear two scenes from the opera itself, and then each of the four principles sings a piece of their choosing.

And then we have our 30th anniversary gala celebration, which is Thursday, October 17th. That is a sit-down dinner where we're going to recognize lots of people who've been involved in the last 30 years. Christine Brewer is the honorary chair. It will be at the Barnett on Washington.

Chuck Lavazzi  
Cool.

Scott Schoonover
Yeah, it's gonna be a really nice evening.

The Essntials: Union Avenue Opera’s 2024 season runs from July 5th through August 24th at the Union Avenue Christian Church in the Central West End. For information and tickets, including the Backstage Pass series 30th Anniversary Gala, visit their web site.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Opera Preview: Opera per tutti al fresco, a conversation with Andrew Jorgensen

Opera Theatre of St. Louis (OTSL) opens its 2021 season on May 22nd, once again on the Webster University campus but this time outside of the Loretto-Hilton Center instead of inside. I chatted via Zoom with OTSL General Director Andrew Jorgensen about the coming season and how it will be both similar to and different from the OTSL experience in the past.

Chuck Lavazzi (CL): I wanted to talk about what differences people can expect this year. I know it will be significantly different for people who are used to the traditional experience but for the rest of us, maybe not so much.

L-R: Andrew Jorgensen, Chuck Lavazzi

Andrew Jorgensen (AJ): I think the name of the game this year was adaptation. More than anything I wanted to ensure that we planned an opera season that wouldn’t be cancelled. We had to do that a year ago and we all understand why that was the right thing to do. I’m grateful to our community of supporters for helping us to do so in a way that we were able to make a settlement with all the company members who didn’t get to come work with us last year. But as we turned our attention in the summer of 2020 to what we would do in 2021, two things quickly became clear to us: the pandemic was going to last longer than any of us expected and so therefore we should not plan a return to normal.

And so that, with the encouragement of the board from Opera Theatre, opened the door for the staff to say “OK, what can we do that will be safe, artistically satisfying, and financially supportable?”

CL: Time to think our of the box and out of the building.

AJ: Yes, time to literally think outside of the box. We met with a small task force of board members that we assembled who were deeply connected with COVID response, at hospitals, and at large institutions, and this group said to us, “don’t count on normal.” That opened door to the question of how you adapt in a way that insures you can put a season on. That's how we arrived, all these months later, at the festival season that we are going to have.

We’re turning the parking lot next door into an outdoor opera house. We have just shy of 300 seats in socially distanced pods of two. So, you can come and have your picnic in our picnic area—that tradition will continue—with socially distanced picnic tables. Then you put your mask on and to into the outdoor seating area and take in a live performance.

With the collaboration of my artistic and production colleagues, we have basically turned the kind of stage you would see at an outdoor rock concert into a beautiful opera stage—full sets, full costumes, full lights. With the collaboration of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra will be with us outside. So, we’re planning a series of productions that actually, I think, represent (albeit in a very different way) the best of what you’d get in any Opera Theatre season.

With the advice of the medical team, we’ve planned for no intermission and no performance which is longer than 75 minutes, so that the logistics of coming together are made a little bit easier. We have smaller cast sizes, different forces; but even within those parameters we’ve planned for four different productions that I think represent the best of what Opera Theatre has to offer.

We have a classic comedy that we haven’t done in over 40 years, “Gianni Schicchi.”

Patricia Racette

CL: Yes, I remember that first production.

AJ: It’s one of the great comedies, and we haven’t done it since 1979!  In William Grant Still’s “Highway 1, U.S.A.” you have a one-act opera which is beautiful: beautiful music, incredible orchestration. It’s a brilliant work by a brilliant composer whose opera have been terribly overlooked. He was called “the dean of African-American composers,” but no one produces his operas. It is so within Opera Theatre’s mission now more than ever to bring that work back to, literally, center stage.

CL: You know, like a lot of people—especially those of us who cover classical music—I know William Grant Still as an instrumental composer, but I had no idea that he had even written any operas.

AJ: That’s perfect. That you say that delights me, because that, for me, is exactly why it’s so exciting to give productions of operas that need to get back into the center of the Canon—as Opera Theatre has done for so many wonderful pieces.

In “Le Voix Humaine” of Poulenc we have one of the great stars of the opera world, Patricia Racette, in an electrifying one-woman performance in a great piece. And then we have not one but three world premieres as part of our “New Works, Bold Voices Lab," which I’m really excited about. It’s a unique collaboration, a unique project; I think it represents the best of Opera Theatre’s ingenuity.

So within the context of all of these adaptations we found a way to put artists back to work, to reunite artists and audiences safely, and to keep art happening. And that, to me, is the most exciting thing.

CL: All this will be familiar to people who go to the St. Louis Symphony a lot: the limited time frame, no intermissions. All this stuff is going to be familiar to a lot of your audience.

AJ: That’s because all of us are working with the same team of doctors that are working with the St. Louis Symphony. We’re all responding to similar public health guidance and setting the health and safety of our company members and our audiences are our highest priority. I think many of us are coming up with similar kinds of solutions about how we can safely adapt despite the fact that even with a rising vaccination rate, we’re still in this pandemic.

CL: Yeah, we have a long way to go. Has it been easy to work with the union involved? I know there has been some friction between Actors Equity and performers who are represented by Actors Equity. I don’t remember the name of the union that represents your singers.

Nicole Cabell

AJ: It’s called AGMA, the American Guild of Musical Artists. And I have to say I am so grateful to Webster University, to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, to the singers’ union, to our stagehands’ union. Everybody has come to these conversations and to this season with good will, with flexibility, and with a desire to get back to work. And I think we recognize that we can all come together and collaborate and that we can make this happen.

Opera Theatre will be one of the very first opera companies and one of the first major art institutions in the country to return to large-scale live performance. And I think that is exciting and meaningful to so many artisans and artists who are eager to get back to their work.

CL: And you’re one of a limited number of venues—I suppose Tanglewood would be another—where it’s actually feasible to do this because you can work in an outdoor setting.

AJ: Well, we don’t really have an outdoor setting; we’re turning a parking lot into an opera house.

CL: Well, but you can create one.

AJ: Yes, and I think many different companies are finding ways to do just that. Many of my colleagues at other opera companies are inventing different kinds of solutions, and when it’s not terrifying it's really exciting to have this opportunity to re-invent our business model and find new ways to produce opera and to make art happen despite all these challenges.

CL: Now in addition to the regular season, you’re doing some other programs this year. Could you talk about those?

AJ: Absolutely. The first is that we will continue our annual Center Stage concert, which puts your young artists at the center of the action.

CL: Which is a tremendous show.

AJ: Yes, it’s a tremendous evening. So many of these young singers are at the start of brilliant careers and I’m always excited about who we’ll hear that evening because I’m sure we’ll see their names in lights going forward. Patricia Racette, who is the director of the Young Artists program, has brought together a fabulous group of young singers this year.

Will Liverman

We also will launch a new concert called “I Dream a World.” It’s presented in collaboration with the Missouri Historical Society. It will be at the History Museum and will be curated by Nicole Cabell and Will Liverman, two singers of color who are the leads in the “Highway 1, U.S.A” production. We are so excited to offer our platform to their vision of how we can celebrate Black Music Month, how we can observe the occasion of Juneteenth, and how we can continue to grow outside of the work that we have done, and to celebrate this extraordinary musical tradition that so many of us are not well-versed in.

It’s just an exciting opportunity to work with Nicole and Will and to see them spearhead this effort, bringing artists together and commissioning work.

CL: Because this is a new situation for your audience, I wonder if you could give people a quick overview of what they can expect when they come to see one of the operas. Because it is going to be a different procedure.

AJ: The first thing to say is that when audiences come the crowd size will be smaller. And everything that we’re planning has been thoroughly vetted with all the authorities and the doctors.

Upon arrival we’ll check everyone in. We’ll do temperature checking and make sure that everyone is feeling OK and that we’re ready to come together. We will ask people to be wearing masks when at their picnic tables and we’ll ask for masks at seats. We will continue our picnic tradition with prepackaged picnics so that people can feel good about coming together at a physically distanced picnic table. I think you can expect the Opera Theatre level of quality and customer care, but with lots of adaptations to make us all feel comfortable.

Instead of printed programs, we’ll have program books that are part of our new app that we’ve created, with all the information. We’re having contactless ticketing so people can print their tickets or have them on their phone. We’ll have lots of little adjustments that will enable people to feel comfortable after coming back into public settings—for many of us, possibly the first time back in large public gatherings.

CL: Will you be checking for proof of vaccination, or is that something you feel would not be that helpful at this point?

AJ: We talked about that. With the collaboration of the medical team what we’ve planned for are safety protocols that assume nobody has been vaccinated. And that was important to me because while many of our audience members will have been vaccinated many of our singers and staff are not yet vaccinated. So we are trying to maximize everybody’s health.

I am incredibly reassured that many of our company members and audience members will be vaccinated, though. That is the ultimate “belt and suspenders” in this context, but we planned in way that insures that even those among us who are not will also be safe.

There are also many adaptations on the singer and company member side: smaller casts, each cast in its own bubble so there’s no crossover between the productions and there's a regime of testing and quarantining and physical distancing so the cast members can self-isolate. They rehearse in masks. They will only unmask when they are singing so they don’t have to physically distance on stage. It’s about finding ways to set the art and the health as priorities and set protocols that support that.

CL: You folks did a really nice job of that with your digital season. Those were shows where no one wore a mask, but they had all been isolated together beforehand for two weeks, right?

AJ: Exactly. We learned so much with our collaboration with Nine Network, our “Songs for St. Louis,” our Holiday Concert, our wonderful “Pirates of Penzance” for our education programs—all those different efforts. So now we’re just “super sizing” those efforts as we bring a full festival company together.

L-R: Angel Riley, Ryan Johnson in
The Pirates of Penzance

The other major new initiative this year is that we’re inaugurating a program of free tickets called “Phyllis’s Seats.” We’re celebrating the legacy of Phyllis Brissenden, a long-time donor and board member—one of our founding members, in fact—who was so dedicated to the company and who left us a very significant bequest. She believed so passionately that opera could be for everyone. She loved to invite new guests to the opera. And so, celebrating that commitment we will have 30 tickets each night which are completely free, starting two days before each performance.

We’re operating at about one-third of our capacity—from 1000 seats down to less than 300—and from almost 28 or 29 performances down to 17 or 18. So there's a reduction of inventory, but we want people to know that they are invited and they are welcome, so that’s why we launched this program of free seats. And we will continue it and grow it as we come back into the opera house in future years. Which signifies this commitment that we believe that opera can, should, and will be for anybody. We want to include as many members of our community at Opera Theatre as we can, and we don't want cost to be a barrier.

CL: A couple more practical questions: I know that the stage will be covered but the audience area will not be (just like the Muny), so I wonder if you could tell us what kind of arrangements you’ve made for the weather in case it doesn’t cooperate. Which, this being St. Louis, it might not.

AJ: (laughs) Yes, so I guess the first answer is that it never rains in St. Louis, but I think you’d know if I said that, that I was probably not on the right page. Of course, we’d rather contend with the weather than with the virus, so that’s the boat that we’re in. We’re considering a number of different approaches.

We will delay the start of the performance if we feel by doing so that we have a better shot, and with shorter performances that might not be the worst thing. We might pause and continue with only piano if that’s an option. We’re having ponchos made up so that if it starts to drizzle, we’ll give audience members ponchos and we’ll all grin and bear it together.

We are also exploring the possibility of video capture of the season so that audiences who are rained out or who can’t get tickets may have access later to some of these performances. Obviously, we hope that every evening will be a beautiful evening, but we also understand that it’s a fact life and we will work with our audiences. If it gets rained out, we’ll refund your ticket but in general we hope that our audiences will make the best of it with us.

CL: And I guess, speaking of that, we should understand that the Loretto-Hilton Center will be closed and can’t be accessed, so people won’t be able to use those restrooms.

AJ: That’s right, but we have other arrangements that we’re making for company and audience members. And, again, that may be one of the benefits of shorter performances.

CL: That too, yes. One quick question: are you finding that you have to work with a smaller orchestra given the space, or is it about the same?

AJ: It will be a slightly smaller orchestra for the two larger pieces, “Highway 1, U.S.A.” and “Gianni Schicchi” because we’re also observing the same distancing requirements that the Symphony has in place for the players. But this is still an extraordinary orchestra.  

The “New Works, Bold Voices Lab”—these three short commissions—are actually designed with very small orchestral forces in mind. We commissioned those pieces this year for socially distanced forces so they could be performed during the pandemic. And the Poulenc is done with just piano, which is often how “La Voix Humaine” is performed.

CL: Is there anything else you want your audience to know that we haven’t talked about?

AJ: Just to underscore how excited we are to be returning to live performances, how grateful we are to our community for supporting us and making the best of this moment, and that we can’t wait to welcome everybody back to the opera after a very challenging year and after seeing so many things cancelled and pushed off. It feels really great. As I look out my window, I can see the tents being erected. It feels great to be returning to our work and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.

CL: Thanks, and we’ll see you at the opera.

The Essentials: Opera Theatre of St. Louis opens its 2021 season with Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” on Saturday, May 22nd; William Grant Still’s “Highway 1, U.S.A.” on Saturday, May 29th; Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” on Saturday, June 5th; and the “New Works, Bold Voices Lab” on Thursday, June 20th. The productions will run in rotating repertory through June 20th at the OTSL outdoor theatre on the Webster University Campus.

“Center Stage: A Young Artist Showcase” takes place at the same location on Saturday, June 19th at 8 pm and Sunday, June 20th, at 1 pm.  “I Dream a World: A Celebration of Juneteenth” takes place on Tuesday, June 15th, at 6 pm at the Missouri History Museum.

For more information, visit the OTSL web site.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Preview: Cry the beloved opera

On Wednesday, August 7th, Union Avenue Opera hosted a fascinating panel discussion about Kurt Weill's "Lost in the Stars," which the company is presenting August 17 - 25.

Lost in the Stars at Cape Town Opera

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Dr. Timothy Parsons of Washington University talked about the historical background of the opera (described by its composer as a "musical tragedy"), which takes place in South Africa under apartheid. We learned, among other things, that the seeds of that pernicious system of segregation were sown back in 1913 when South Africa passed the Natives Land Act, which forced the black 80% of the population to live on so-called "native reserves," which made up only 13% of the land. Ostensibly designed to protect native culture, the real purpose of the law was to generate cheap labor for South African industry, since the natives, who had a primarily agrarian economy, couldn't support themselves on such small amount of land-and were legally forbidden to farm elsewhere.

Noted writer and director Tazewell Thompson (the production's Kurt Weill Mentor) recalled his experiences directing the show for Cape Town Opera in South Africa (pictured above)  and how the issues it deals with--racial separation and the fear it generates--resonate in America today. He reminded us that Alan Paton's "Cry the Beloved Country," the celebrated novel on which "Lost in the Stars" is based, was actually banned in South Africa for many years.

Kenneth Overton

Director Shaun Patrick Tubbs observed how his approach to the show is informed by the work Thompson and others have done before him. Baritone Kenneth Overton reflected on how his view of the role of Rev. Stephen Kumalo, the black preacher who tries and fails to save his son Absalom from the hangman's noose, has changed since he did the role nine years ago. And Mezzo Krysty Swann talked about the vocal and dramatic challenges of her role as Irina, the woman whom Absalom loves and marries.

Hosted by KETC's Ruth Ezell, the event included some valuable comments from the floor. Most notable was a recollection by a member of the Dunham Foundation board of directors of the time he saw the original cast of "Lost in the Stars" perform at the American Theater in 1950. The American was segregated at the time, with black patrons relegated to the top balcony. But Todd Duncan, who was playing Stephen Kumalo, demanded that black patrons be allowed into the first balcony. A brief story in the Post-Dispatch carried the headline "American Theater eases color line for one show."

Two years later, the American abruptly desegregated.

Krysty Swamm

Preview events continue on Wednesday, August 8, at 6 pm with a brief concert of selections from the opera featuring Mr. Overton and Ms. Swann at Centennial Christian Church, 4950 Fountain in north St. Louis. You can also hear music from the opera on Thursday, August 9--this time with tenor Roderick George, who sings the role of Leader, joining Ms. Swann--as part of Union Avenue's Opera's Open House at Centro Modern Furnishings, 4727 McPherson in the Central West End.

If you missed the panel discussion, you can still get plenty of deep background on "Lost in the Stars" at Union Avenue's Friday Night Lecture Series on August 17th and 24th at 7 pm. Dr. Glenn Bauer will discuss the opera's history and give you a sneak peak at the upcoming performance.

I should note that I'm not exactly a disinterested party in all this. As many of you may know, I have been an actor and singer for about as long as I have been a music and theatre critic, and as it happens I'm performing in "Lost in the Stars" in the non-singing role of Mark Eland. Watching this remarkable work come together has been gratifying, to say the least.

More information on "Lost in the Stars" is available at the Union Avenue Opera web site.

Opera Preview: James Robinson on the many layers of "Emmeline"

James Robinson
experienceopera.org

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Opera Theatre's fourth production of the season is the local premiere of Tobias Picker's 1996 "Emmeline," which has a book by poet J.D. McClatchy, based on the novel of the same name by Judith Rossner. I spoke with stage director James Robinson about the piece via email this week.

Chuck Lavazzi: "Emmeline" is the story of a young textile mill worker who is seduced by her employer's son-in-law, gets pregnant, and is forced to give up the baby. Two decades later she unwittingly meets and marries the young man who turns out to be her son. That kernel of story, it seems to me, resonates on both a deep psychological level with its overtones of Oedipus as well as on a political and social level. What aspects of the opera do you find most compelling and why?

James Robinson: I've always been drawn to stories about "the other" in a society. "Emmeline" is certainly about someone who through no fault of her own has become a pariah, an outcast. It's certainly a deeply psychological story that has strong ties to "Oedipus," but it's also the tale of a woman who is really looking and longing to be loved. Obviously, she is taken advantage of by McGuire, the employer's son-in-law who not just takes advantage of her and, to be blunt, he rapes her. McGuire knows that young Emmeline, who has just come to work in the mills, is lonely and he suggests that he can become a father figure to her (knowing that she desperately misses her father and family). What's masterful about the way McClatchy and Picker have approached this situation is that the audience is almost fooled into believing this is a traditional romantic situation — the text is like a love duet and the music is achingly romantic. Then you have to say, "Wait a minute, she's 14 and he's at least twice her age!" Of course, when she finally falls in love with Matthew we again are hoping that she finds true love. Again, it turns out very badly and both librettist and composer know how to deliver a real punch in the gut. So I think these elements are really interesting. In a sense, "Emmeline" with its taut libretto and stunning music is like an opera by Janacek. It follows that composer's masterworks like "Katya Kabanova" and "Jenufa".

I guess on another level, I love the fact that this is an American opera set in New England and it's rooted in a real time and place. Historically, the mills of Lowell, MA were fascinating in terms of the girls who were sent to work there and what it meant — both good and bad — to industry in the US. I also enjoy presenting operas that shed light on times and places that are not commonly familiar to most people.

Speaking of the music, in the New York Times review of the 1998 City Opera production, Bernard Holland (who liked the score quite a lot) wrote that the composer "has a true ear for lyrical run-on musical sentences. They ride gracefully and take interesting directions." I'm not entirely sure what he means by that. Now that you've spend so much time with the music, and you tell me what you think he was getting at there?

I would say that Picker has written some really wonderful lyrical passages that are not entirely predictable. "Emmeline" is a very tuneful score and the vocal writing plays off of a lot of solo writing in the orchestra. I would say it's one of the great strengths of the piece because you never really know where the lines are going. So in a sense it's very much like the way people speak or think — there's a great deal of spontaneity that keeps you wondering where things are heading. This as opposed to a more formulaic pattern of vocal writing.

It sounds like even though Picker studied with some aggressively "modernist" composers like Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt, he has personally gone back to a more tonal style of composition. Is this something you see happening frequently in the contemporary opera world?

Interestingly, I have come across many composers who worked with some hardcore modernists over the years but who have opted to compose in a more lyrical even tonal style. There is a rigorous element to Picker's music that certainly reflects some of his earlier compositions but I think this has less to do with atonality and more to do with rhythm. "Emmeline" is, in fact, an extremely tonal score but there are some extremely complex rhythmic patterns used throughout.

Yes, I think something similar is happening in the concert world as well. I've been hearing a lot of "new music" lately that seems to recognize that the war against tonality that the serialists started has been lost. That's a positive development in my book.

I've seen the same thing. I'm not sure it's a complete rejection of brutal atonality as many of these newer/younger composers are employing certain techniques but in a more personal way and with music rooted in tonality. There's also a lot of fusion of styles that I think is very interesting. You hear influences of jazz, rock and international music. The real pros know how to bring these things together to create their own voices.

Last question: "Emmeline" is, as you say, a layered and complex piece. What are you hoping audiences will take away from it, emotionally and/or intellectually?

I'm hoping the audiences for "Emmeline" will find it a riveting story with really gorgeous music (and terrific performances). True, it's a dark story but it's also quite a moving story that resonates on so many levels. Someone I know saw a dress rehearsal (and she's not a huge opera fan) and wrote me the most incredible note about how the opera touched her deeply on levels of love, religion, passion, taking advantage of children, etc. Is the story too dark? I don't think so. After all, we know pretty early on that Cio Cio San, Mimi and Tosca are not going to have an easy time of it.

"Emmeline" opens Sunday, June 14, and runs through June 27. For more information, visit the Opera Theatre web site.

Opera Preview: Stage director Michael Gieleta on Opera Theatre's "La Rondine"

Michael Gieleta
michaelgieleta.com

This Saturday, May 30th, Opera Theatre of St. Louis presents Puccini's rarely seen "lyrical comedy" "La Rondine" ("The Swallow") in the original 1917 version. The opera has only been seen once before on the OTSL stage—in 1996, when the company presented the American premiere of the third (1921) version. I interviewed stage director Michael Gieleta via email during the final week of rehearsals.

Chuck Lavazzi: Puccini famously left "La Rondine" in a bit of a mess when he died, with three different performing versions available. OTSL has decided on the original 1917 version, which seems to be a popular choice. What were the factors the led you and your collaborators to pick this one as opposed to the other two?

Michael Gieleta: I don't think Puccini's lateral takes on "La Rondine" are any different from his takes on "Madama Butterfly," or of many now-famous American musicals which, for different reasons, get written and rewritten before, during and after they reach Broadway/the West End. It's not untypical of the composers' creative process and of its response to the various kind of pressure from the publishers, producers and the initial press feedback. Lastly, there are the stars who demand an extra "number" (be it "Send in the Clowns" or "Una furtiva lagrima") before the final curtain. Does anyone ever perform the Berlin version of Ibsen's "Doll's House" at the end of which Nora decides to stay with the husband and the children in order to keep the family hearth alit?

OTSL considered the original, Monte Carlo-premiered version of "La Rondine" most immediate and straightforward and that was the version it was decided to go along with. It may mean that our male lead misses out on his "Parigi è una città dei desideri" Act One aria introduced in the later versions, but he more than makes up for it later in the opera!

"La Rondine" doesn't seem to get as much attention as Puccini's more famous operas. Why do you think that might be?

It's an interesting question that could be asked in reverse: why is it that "Tosca," "Butterfly," and "Bohème" have been more present in the repertoire than "Manon Lescaut," "The Girl of the Golden West," "Il Tabarro," "La Rondine" or even "Turandot"?

What makes "La Rondine"'s rare appearance in the rep even more particular is the fact that, unlike some of the titles above, "La Rondine" has a genuine "hit", "Qu'il bel sogno di Doretta". Furthermore, it is one of Puccini's most loved, performed and enduring arias. The biographical background of the premiere of the piece is an unusual one too; I've written about it at length in the programme note.

What is important is that some titles, some composers and some authors simply come in and out of fashion. It's up to each generation to find their sung or unsung heroes according to that generation's sensitivities towards beauty, drama and music. If you stand outside the famous Paris Opera House, you may as well ask what the busts of Spontini, Halévy, Meyerbeer and Auber are doing next to those of Mozart, Beethoven and Rossini.

As you write in your program note, "La Rondine" was often referred to (inaccurately and dismissively) as Puccini's "operetta," but that this is finally changing. Do you think the attitudes of the protagonist Magda might play a part in that? She seems a bit less inclined to play the victim than Puccini's more well-known heroines, which would make her more plausible to a contemporary audience.

As "La Rondine" is being reappreciated in the modern day, the contemporary audiences get a chance to directly experience this paradox: whatever monikers were applied to the opera in the past, they are not necessarily substantiated by the work itself.

Magda is no victim at all; she takes responsibility for her choices and she sticks to those choices. We are given minimal background information concerning the characters as if the piece was prompting the audience to figure the actual storyline out for themselves from the scraps of textual evidence. In that context, "La Rondine" is reminiscent of a good theatrical play in which the author renounces traditional omniscience and where the public free to interpret the scarcely narrated facts in their own way. To quote Puccini's contemporary playwright Luigi Pirandello: "it is so, (if you think so)". That's the spirit, I believe, in which Puccini and Adami were writing "La Rondine."

So it is, in some ways, a very modern work.

Last question: the last opera you directed here in St. Louis was Smetana's "The Kiss" back in 2013. At the time, I couldn't help noticing that the heroine, Vendulka, was a refreshingly independent-minded woman with attitudes toward the opposite sex and marriage that sounded very modern, given that the opera premiered in 1876. As a director, are you drawn to libretti that (unlike so much of 19th century opera) feature strong-willed heroines? Or am I just reading too much into this?

I'm very flattered, Chuck, that you have noticed the parallel. I see myself as a storyteller and an interpreter of the material left over by the composer and the librettist. It's Smetana and Puccini (and countless others) who put strong-willed women at the centre of their works. "La Rondine" is quite unusual in Puccini's cannon as it does not have a pre-existing literary source. But that gives both the artists and the audience a wider scope for unbiased interpretation. There's much less play-like realism in "La Rondine" (as opposed to such intricately crafted theatrical set-ups as those found in "Tosca" or "Butterfly," based respectively on plays by Sardou and Belasco); such absence of narrative certainties makes my job all the more demanding, it enriches the rehearsal process and prompts us all in the rehearsal room to stretch our imagination beyond the factual succinctness of the stage directions in the score.

Ticket information for "La Rondine," the season's other operas, and information on the entire OTSL experience (including picnic suppers on the lawn before the shows) is available at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

Opera Preview: A conversation with Michael Shell, stage director of Opera Theatre's "Barber of Seville"

Michael Shell
michaelshelldirector.com

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Opera Theatre of St. Louis opens its 2015 festival season with Rossini's popular comic opera "The Barber of Seville" on Saturday, May 23rd. The production, which will run through June 27th, will alternate with three other operas on the main stage of the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus.

This will be OTSL's sixth production of the opera. In an email interview, I asked stage director Michael Shell (who directed Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte" for OTSL back in 2012) what to expect in this latest version of the Rossini classic.

Chuck Lavazzi (CL): When this production made its first appearance with Opera Philadelphia last October, the reviewer for PhillyNow praised its "modernist set design and colorful costumes". How would you describe the look of this new "Barber"?

Michael Shell (MS): I would describe the look of new production as vibrant, energetic and very Spanish. The music is vibrant and energetic/rhythmic. I wanted the look and feel of this production and the way we tell the story to match the vibrant rhythmic quality of the music. This is not Beaumarchais's "Barber of Seville." This is very much a Rossini comedy in the best sense. It walks the line between reality and absurdity and I wanted an environment that could sustain and allow for both. The updating of the piece, using the films of Pedro Almodovar as a jumping off point, helped give us a different way to look at the whole. Not to ignore any aspect of what was there, but allow us to go to a variety of different places.

CL: How does that vision of "Barber" influence the way you direct your singers? Is there a particular acting style you're going for that might be different from a more traditional production?

MS: I always come from a place of what does the character want and how do they get it. That is the most important thing. What changes because of this take on the show, is the how. How they go about achieving their goals becomes just as important as what the goals or objectives are. How does Bertha, for example, who I feel really loves Bartolo, go about getting him to notice her. The Count's disguise as Don Alonso allows the meaning of his words at the top of Act II "Peace and joy and understanding" to go to a different place in order to trick Bartolo.

CL: Yes. Actors can never go wrong asking "what's my objective in this scene?" regardless of whether there's music behind them or not.

MS: Absolutely!! I agree completely. Tends to not be the first thing that opera singers ask, but I am fortunate that this cast was very interested in discussing and working towards that so that we could make interesting choices on how to go about achieving their objectives.

Shell's "Cosi fan Tutte" at OTSL, 2012
experienceopera.org

CL: The notion of what's funny varies among cultures and often changes over time. Directors of Shakespeare's comedies, for example, often find themselves faced with a real challenge in keeping the shows funny for a modern audience when the references for so many of the jokes have been lost over the centuries. Do you find a similar challenge in 18th and 19th century comic operas? How do you deal with it, if so?

MS: In terms of comedies, the good comedic operas by Mozart or Rossini for example, have tapped into something that is universal and still relevant to us today. So while my choice of setting for this production is updated, and it certainly allows us to be somewhat anachronistic at times, the whole point was to tap into that universal humor that is intrinsic in the piece. And perhaps by putting it in a setting that is distant but still closer to our time than the original period, it may be more humorous to some people who might not be enticed by a traditional telling. The new touches that make it perhaps more humorous are only able to work because we have found situations that match the ones in the piece. For example - In discussion the characters with my team, we decided that because Bartolo is so blind to not only the fact that Rosina could never love him, but somewhat oblivious to everything that is going on around him, that he should be an eye doctor. And in our efforts to keep the character of Rosina from being just this bored, sometimes petulant girl, in this production, we thought that Bartolo would make her be his medical assistant / secretary in order to keep an eye on her. So in his aria near the end of Act I, we introduce a patient into the mix while Bartolo is fuming with anger at Rosina. So he is having to deal with this patient and Rosina at the same time. The exam gets out of control as he loses his cool with Rosina.

This is in no way saying that a traditional telling of this piece is equally as funny. But I figured that it might be interesting to explore a new side of this piece to do what you said about keeping it funny for a modern audience.

CL: One last question: OperaBase shows "Barber" as the eighth most performed opera in the world right now and the third most performed comedy, right behind Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro." What do you think is behind that continuing popularity?

MS: To answer your question - I think I can sum that up with one word : JOY. There is so much joy in the spirit of the piece that I think that is why it has stood the test of time. There is joy in the story, in the characters and especially Rossini's music. It is just a lot of fun to be in this world. And what I hope our production has done has created a world, that may be different than the normal one, but a world that the audience wants to be in and be a part of.

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For ticket information on "The Barber of Seville," the season's other operas, and information on the entire OTSL experience (including picnic suppers on the lawn before the shows): experienceopera.org.

Opera Preview: The culture war over 'La Traviata'

Riccardo Iannello and Zulimar López-Hernández
Photo © Ron Lindsey, 2014 | All Rights Reserved

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[This weekend Union Avenue Opera opens its twentieth anniversary season with Verdi's La Traviata]

Nothing dates faster than relevance. The more a work of art addresses uniquely contemporary issues, the quicker it becomes stale and even, eventually, quaint.

When Verdi's La Traviata opened at the Teatro alla Fenice in 1853, it was very relevant. Based on Alexandre Dumas fils's 1852 stage adaptation or his 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias, Francesco Maria Piave's libretto was, as they say, “hot stuff”.  The heroine (Marguerite in the original, Violetta in the opera) was clearly based on the recently deceased Alphonsine Plessis, one of the most famous members of the demi-monde, a term invented by Dumas to describe a class of women in Second Empire France who were “kept” by wealthy lovers in high style. They were often patrons of the arts and apparently knew how to throw one heck of a party, but were shunned by polite society. The sympathetic treatment of Violetta in the opera, therefore, was something of a scandal, especially when combined with Verdi's own flouting of “middle class morality” by openly living with his mistress, the soprano Giuseppina Strapponi.

The premiere itself was a bit of a disaster, capped by the fatal miscasting of a soprano whose girth made her attempts to portray a consumptive beauty laughable rather than tragic, but that didn't make it any less of succès de scandale. The theatre's management tried to blunt the impact by forcing Verdi to set the action a century earlier, but I doubt that anyone was fooled. Certainly the censors and conservative critics weren't conned, and future productions were routinely attacked by the blinkered guardians of public morality.

The status of women in Western society has changed greatly over the last century and a half, however, so some of the drama now looks rather old fashioned. And yet, the work is still immensely popular and is generally regarded as part of the core operatic repertoire.

Why?

Debra Hillabrand and Phillip Bullock
Photo © Ron Lindsey, 2014 | All Rights Reserved

The answer is obvious to anyone who has ever heard the score. Verdi lavished his genius on La Traviata, filling the stage with brilliant choruses, ravishing duets and arias, and spectacular ensemble numbers. The finale of Act II, as Alfredo scorns Violetta for her supposed infidelity and is then scored in turn by Violetta's friends and nearly disowned by his father, is musical theatre at its best. The cultural context may be dated, but the emotions are universally human.

But perhaps it's not so dated after all. The clash between the hedonistic and creative bohemians of Paris's left bank and the scandalized middle class is not unlike the culture wars that have been raging here in the USA since the 1970s. Sadly, the opera's portrayal of the casual cruelty of the morally smug still has resonance. It's not difficult at all to imagine Giogio Germont's pompous and destructive moralizing in Act II coming from the mouth (say) of any random member of the Republican Party.

Maybe everything old is, in fact, new again.

Union Avenue Opera presents La Traviata Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM, July 11 through 19, at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union at Enright in the Central West End.  Note that there is a parking lot at the church, but it tends to fill up early, so arrival by 7:30 is advised.  For more information: unionavenueopera.org.

This originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Love potion number 9

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Disgusted with the way your Facebook friends are cheerfully spreading bogus news items without bothering to fact check them?  Convinced that the Internet is turning us into a nation of credulous chumps who will buy anything?  As Opera Theatre is demonstrating this weekend, P.T. Barnum's observation about a sucker being born every minute is nothing new.

This Saturday, Opera Theatre opens its second production of the season, Gaetano Donizetti's 1832 melodramma giocoso (that's "comic opera" to us Anglophones) "The Elixir of Love."  Based on Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's popular comedy Le philtre  from 1831, Felice Romani's book for "The Elixir of Love" is the story of Nemorino, a humble peasant smitten with the wealthy and beautiful landowner Adina.  She, though, is more taken with the macho Sergeant Belcore.  In desperation, Nemorino buys a love potion (actually just some cheap wine) from the traveling quack Dr. Dulcamara.  Complications, as they say, ensue.

Two and one-half hours and much singing later, all ends happily for everyone—including Dr. Dulcamara who, as the curtain descends, is still fleecing the suckers. 

The opera proved to be a huge hit for Donizetti and is still, according to the Operabase on-line database, one of his most popular works, outpacing even his big tragic hit, "Lucia di Lammermoor."  That's partly because, as the late British opera scholar Julian Budden has written, "Donizetti created a pastoral comedy that fulfills the Romantic ideals of its day" and partly because the story of the gullible rube being taken in by the sharp con artist was as much of a comic gold mine nearly two centuries ago as it is now.

Photo: Ken Howard

Even so, the opera's immediate success was a bit of a surprise.  Donizetti—who had a reputation for being able to crank out operas under a deadline—had to brew his "Elixir" in just over a month in April of 1832 when a previously contracted work for Milan's Teatro all Cannobiana failed to materialize.  "On May 12," writes Francis Rizzo in the OTSL program, "despite inadequate rehearsal and a mediocre cast, The Elixir of Love had a triumphant opening."  Few people were more surprised than the composer.

Donizetti's opera was originally set in a small Basque village at the end of the 18th century—that is, in a somewhat exotic rural setting in the not-too-distant past.  The OTSL production moves the action to "a small American town in 1914," which would seem to be a reasonable parallel for a modern urban audience.  Besides, as director James Robinson points out in his production notes, both the setting and the basic plot elements are not dissimilar from those of a classic American musical theatre piece: Meredith Willson's 1957 hit "The Music Man." 

Classic Americana is the source of the production's visual elements as well.  "The works of Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton provided a delightful inspiration" for the look of the production, writes Mr. Robinson, "and quickly our rural Italian landscape became Anytown, U.S.A—on the eve of World War I."

The essentials: "The Elixir of Love" opens on Saturday, May 31, at 8 PM and runs in rotating repertory with the other season opera through June 25th.  For the full festival experience, come early and have a picnic supper on the lawn or under the refreshment tent. You can bring your own food or purchase a gourmet supper in advance from Ces and Judy’s. Drinks are available on site as well, or you can bring your own. For more information: experienceopera.org or 314-961-0644.